


the only one for me

by swiftishere



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, bc im too lazy to put it into third, might continue this later, they're still on the heph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 02:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12997416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftishere/pseuds/swiftishere
Summary: Everyone has three names tattooed on their wrist: their true love, their biggest enemy, and their greatest ally.You aren’t born with them - you start with the first initial, and then they get filled in as you grow closer together, until you meet and the names are fully revealed.For most people, at least.But you? You only have one.





	the only one for me

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on a tumblr prompt but i can't find it anymore, if you can tell me and i'll link it here

You always hated soul marks.

 

_Everyone has three names tattooed on their wrist: their true love, their biggest enemy, and their greatest ally._

 

You aren’t born with them - you start with the first initial, and then they get filled in as you grow closer together, until you meet and the names are fully revealed.

 

For most people, at least. Three sets of initials that you’d show off at preschool. at the park. “These are my soulmates!” kids will announce cheerfully, picking up the word so casually thrown around by everyone on TV. Three sets of initials that determined who they’d spend the rest of their lives with.

 

You only have one. Just a _V._

 

“It’ll probably get filled in as you get older,” everyone assured you. “Sometimes people go by nicknames. Sometimes they don’t have last names. Don’t worry about it!”

 

It wasn’t a problem when you were young. You could just wear long sleeved shirts and not talk to people, not let them see it. But then you got older and more and more people started meeting their soulmates. Competitions sparked at work parties that turn into legendary rivalries, conversations at lunch halls that suddenly turn into _wait, wait, I know those initials!_ and you turn your arms over and you match, best friends forever. That curious, pitying look when you explain that you hadn’t met any of yours yet - _it’s not a lie, not really._

 

You know some people don’t have all the soul marks. “I’m just not that kind of person,” they’ll explain cheerfully. “I’ve got an enemy and an ally and that’s all I need!” and that’s fine. They can live their lives how they want, but you _know_ you’re not one of them. For one thing, you never got more than those initials.

 

Then there was that day. Right after the accident, when you woke up and suddenly every memory comes rushing back. You barely noticed the sharp pain in your wrist until you reached out and suddenly noticed that it was different.

 

_D. I. V._ Every cloud, you guess. Unless this person turns out to be your enemy in which case, yeah, you probably deserve that.

 

Then that man with the suit and the smile comes to visit and after he leaves, _D. I. Vol._

 

And you’re in space, which is hard to get used to, and after you finish introducing yourself _D. I. Volodin._ You’re going to be up here for two years with only three other people, none of whose names match the one on your wrist, and suddenly this sidequest of a tattoo is popping up with a message? “You’re getting close!” Who else are you going to meet? Why’d it start moving so quickly all of a sudden?

 

You get along with the rest of the crew okay, you guess. The commander’s strict as all get-out, and Hilbert keeps to himself mostly, but Hera’s nice, if kind of naive and a little insensitive at times. It’s fun to try and explain human stuff to her.

 

You avoid the physical examinations. A combination of natural human _stay-away-with-that-sharp-thing_ and the fact that he’d probably want to get some blood or whatever and that’d require showing him your mark. Hilbert doesn’t seem like the type to ask too many questions, but you’re not exactly willing to bet what little dignity you have on that.

 

He eventually corners you, though. It ends up not being for a physical and really because of that goddamn bug. God, why do you have to be such a coward when it comes to spiders.

 

So you’re sitting there and he’s taking your pulse, checking your eye for whatever it is he needs to check your eye for because it’s not like you were paying attention when he explained it. You were mostly trying not to think about the spider. And then all of a sudden “Should draw blood too. Spider may have stung you without your noticing.” You barely think about how blood drawing works at first because that was a mental image you needed, god this guy is really bad at social interaction.

 

Then you realize he’s holding out a hand expectantly and your brain finally starts working. “Oh. Right,” you say unenthusiastically. You still don’t offer him your wrist, though.

 

With an impatient huff he leans over and grabs your right wrist and you suddenly realize that if you wanted to get out of the whole ordeal that always results of people seeing your mark, you probably should have offered your left one. You look away as he rolls up your sleeve, you’d rather not see his reaction. His fingers briefly tighten on your wrist. Surprise, probably.

 

“You-“ he says, but you cut him off.

 

“Only have one name, and it’s not even complete. Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

 

He clears his throat awkwardly. “My apologies. Did not mean to imply anything.”

 

“Whatever, just draw the blood or whatever so I can leave.”

 

Later Hera asks you what all that was about. You give her the briefest explanation you can, not caring that you definitely sound like you’re brushing her off.

 

———

 

You always hated soul marks.

 

_Everyone has three names tattooed on their wrist: their true love, their biggest enemy, and their greatest ally._

 

That’s fine. As long as it works the way everyone says it should, which maybe it doesn’t always, maybe the science is more complicated then you teach children. That’s how it always works, right? There’s no way it’s always the same for everyone.

 

When Olga didn’t have any that became a mantra. _It’s fine, it’s fine, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s fine._

 

It wasn’t fine.

 

So who can blame you for hating the thing that told you, in no uncertain terms, _your sister will never live to meet anyone important?_

 

Just another thing to try not to think about.

 

You thought about it so little _(ha)_ that you sometimes forgot having only one name was unusual. You just never really had a frame of reference for it.

 

When you finally made it to America, it wasn’t that much of a surprise when one letter became three. _D. F. E._

 

When Cutter offered you that “deal” and the _E._ turned into an _Eiffel_ you couldn’t help but think that _surely what I’m doing can lead me nowhere good._ And you resigned yourself to the idea that the only person who was important enough to merit their name on your skin was going to be someone who hated you.

 

Mission after mission of trying to stay occupied, stay moving, never leave yourself time to think. And never did you get any more of the name.

 

Until Lovelace goes running off into the star and you slowly realize that this may not be something you can come back from. And you get off the phone with Cutter and finally glance at your wrist to make sure you didn’t cut yourself somehow and _Douglas F. Eiffel._ Okay, so your “worst enemy” is coming to see you.

 

Let them come.

 

You get the report from Command and you’re already dreading your first encounter. So you stand at the ready next to your commander waiting for the door to open and-

 

He’s not actually as bad as you were expecting.

 

Sure, kind of talkative and you’d really wish he’d take his job more seriously, sometimes, but if it weren’t for the fact that the second you locked eyes with him you could feel the tell-tale ache of new letters appearing, he would have just been another test subject.

 

Probably.

 

Though sometimes you think that his green eyes and his laid-back attitude towards everything important and the way he said your name when he passed by the lab and noticed you were still working-

 

Sometimes you think those would’ve stayed with you.

 

Certainly, he wasn’t the kind of person you were particularly inclined to hate.

 

And when you accidentally force him to show you his mark and you see your name, not the one Command came up with but the one you haven’t heard spoken by anyone kind in - _decades,_ really - and he doesn’t look at you with that fake casual remark-

 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

 

-and you have to wonder why it isn’t complete yet. He’s met you, definitely.

 

Hera asks you about it later. You suspect she’s been asking everyone. If her programming got anything really right it was on teaching her how to gather data well.

 

“What are yours?” she asks after you give her the typical explanation, editorializing a bit more than you usually do ( _it’s not always like that, it doesn’t always work, you have to keep that in mind)_

 

You fiddle with the sleeve of your lab coat, looking away from the camera that’s currently displaying a question mark in LED lights.

 

“Unimportant,” you respond.


End file.
